Are You the Doctor in the House?

Many years ago, my late uncle was returning from Europe when a passenger became ill over the Atlantic. Since there were no other physicians on board, my uncle – a psychiatrist – stepped forward and tended to the patient until the plane diverted to Bangor, ME and the paramedics took over. The patient was heading for the Cleveland Clinic – for a bypass.

In his column in today’s issue of AMA eVoice, AMA President Dr. Ronald Davis follows up with letters and emails commenting on his Dec. 13 column on state Good Samaritan laws. My email was noted in which I recalled the editor of Emergency Medicine magazine offering $1,000 for someone reporting a case where a physician was successfully sued for stopping at the scene of an accident. As I understood it, they never paid the reward.

The AMA has two resource documents on their website:

A compendium of state laws

An explanation of Good Samaritan laws as they relate to emergency care.

The takeaway from this discussion: In most communities (but certainly not all!) the local EMS is not far behind. If there are paramedics, you might be in the way if you don’t know local protocols. Asking if you can help is fine, but if they don’t need you, that’s fine. We’ve come a long way from the 1970s, when the TV show “Emergency” was science fiction to all but a few communities.

Physicians should have a reasonable understanding of the local EMS system and the people who work in it. It could be a good presentation at a medical society or medical staff meeting, as things change and advance faster than we may realize. As much as we think we understand what’s out there, we are often surprised by what services are in our own communities.